from the some-of-us-remember dept

You might recall that top cable industry lobbyist Michael Powell, formerly head of the FCC, got much of the current Title II debate rolling back in 2002 when he reclassified cable broadband as an "information service." This effectively opened the door to a massive era of broadband deregulation Powell and friends at the time insisted would usher forth an immense new wave of broadband competition. If you've checked your broadband bill or oh, stepped outside lately, you may have noticed that this utopian broadband landscape never materialized.

A huge part of Powell's justification for rampant deregulation (or really, the need for any meaningful regulators whatsoever) was that broadband over powerline was going to make the market so damn competitive that regulators really wouldn't be needed. Powell repeatedly ignored engineers who stated broadband over powerline caused massive radio interference in trial markets, and wasn't suitable for even a niche broadband deployment technology. As such, Powell's "great broadband hope" never took flight, and what we wound up with was a more potent and uncompetitive broadband duopoly than ever before.

Now heading the cable industry's biggest lobbying operation, the NCTA, Powell has popped up with a little bit of revisionist history, as he heavily criticizes the current FCC's shift back to Title II. According to Powell, the cable industry will most certainly sue over the FCC's new rules, and he blames everybody but himself for turning net neutrality into a "partisan issue":

"He suggested that after the principles became a declaratory ruling under the chairmanship of his successor, Kevin Martin, it they were probably applied in a "reckless way" [the Comcast/BitTorrent decision] that led to being overturned in court," which he said put a bigger spotlight on it, after which it became a 2008 campaign issue for Obama, then was promulgated as a rule and political imperative, and that is where he thinks the issue "got off the rail."

Of course Powell ignores the fact that if he hadn't massively deregulated the broadband industry in the first place based on flimsy justifications and bad data, we likely wouldn't be having this conversation. Powell then continues with the idea that it's everybody else's fault for net neutrality becoming a partisan issue (like oh, claiming neutrality is "Obamacare for the Internet"):

"Asked to make the "Republican" case for network neutrality, Powell said Republicans are "no different from Democrats in that they want their messages to be heard," and Republican kids want to go to Nickelodeon, and everybody wants to use their iPhone. These services and apps are not partisan, he said. It was the President's "interjection" into the issue that turned it into "party political partisanship," Powell said.

He's half right. As we've noted countless times, Democrats and Republicans alike support net neutrality, and a growing number of conservatives are supporting Title II because they realize it's the best available option in a market that's simply not going to be competitive any time soon. The difference is, if you back away from partisan pattycake for a moment, you'll notice that Powell's a huge part of the reason that competition doesn't exist. And as cable's top lobbyist he's still busy pretending the industry's hyper competitive while defending practices like unnecessary usage caps -- directly aimed at abusing the lack of competition he helped facilitate.

Republican, Democrat or aardvark, it's unfortunate that nobody in this country appears particularly interested in somehow documenting and remembering what people have previously said and done; it might just come in handy sometime when trying to determine credibility.

from the damn-lies-and-statistics dept

As we noted last week, the idea that net neutrality is a strictly partisan issue is a dated one, with several new studies indicating that support for net neutrality (and support for meaningful net neutrality rules) is increasingly common among members of all parties. As we've also noted several times, most people, when you sit them down and talk to them, understand that letting lumbering telecom duopolists write the laws, corner the market, and erect obnoxious new and arbitrary tolls, simply isn't a very bright idea or conducive to healthy technology markets.

While a number of polls and surveys were busy deconstructing the myth of the partisan neutrality feud last week, Rasmussen Reports was busy trying to perpetuate it. The firm recently issued a new poll that breathlessly proclaimed that 61% of the public opposed net neutrality rules, while also insisting that people generally really like their cable and broadband providers:

"Most Americans have opposed increased government regulation of the Internet since December 2010 when some members of the FCC began pushing “net neutrality” efforts to stop some companies from offering higher downloading speeds to preferred customers. Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans who regularly go online rate the quality of their Internet service as good or excellent. Only five percent (5%) consider their service poor. Americans remain suspicious of the motives of those who want government regulation of the Internet. Sixty-eight percent (68%) are concerned that if the FCC does gain regulatory control over the Internet, it will lead to government efforts to control online content or promote a political agenda, with 44% who are Very Concerned."

Of course if you actually bother to investigate the questions asked of survey participants, you'll notice this amusing little ditty:

"Should the Internet remain "open" without regulation and censorship or should the Federal Communications Commission regulate the Internet like it does radio and television?"

Note that in this case the question tells the poll taker the Internet is currently "open" and that regulation will automatically change this. Amusingly, the phrase "and censorship" is just kind of thrown in there casually, as if nobody reading the poll questions could possibly ferret out that Rasmussen is being misleading. It's effectively asking survey recipients: "Do you like government meddling -- that involves punching you squarely in the face?"

The Rasmussen poll wording also goes on to more subtly rattle ye olde "all regulation is automatically evil" saber, strongly implying that real competition would be immeasurably better than consumer protections. That's partially true -- we've obviously argued more than a few times that net neutrality violations are just the symptom of the lack of competition disease. That said, Rasmussen intentionally ignores (or doesn't actually understand) that Title II with forbearance is the best option available in the face of an immensely powerful broadband duopoly (or monopoly) that's simply not getting fixed anytime soon.

Obviously this isn't the first time Rasmussen has brought loaded questions to play. The firm's reputation as a reliable pollster took a mammoth hit back in 2010 for repeatedly being significantly off on projections, and having what Nate Silver and Five-Thirty-Eight at the time complained was "cavalier attitude toward polling convention," something Silver stated would "need to be refined" if the pollster was to ever be taken seriously again. Judging from their net neutrality poll, those necessary improvements may not be coming anytime soon.

That said, do you support net neutrality...when it involves getting kicked in the groin?

from the ouch dept

Looks like the next domino in the SOPA/PIPA fight just fell. Tony Romm is reporting that Senate minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell is calling on Democrats to drop PIPA. That has a high likelihood of killing off what little Republican support is left for PIPA, because where McConnell goes, so go most Republican Senate votes. As we predicted this morning, it's looking like this is becoming a partisan issue -- with the Republicans lined up with internet users... and Democrats lined up with a couple of big Hollywood studios who don't want to innovate. The real shame in that, of course, is that for many, many months, the only person keeping PIPA from moving forward was Senator Ron Wyden -- a Democrat... and it appears his entire party has totally abandoned him. I'm still worried this now becomes a partisan issue, but it's still pretty stunning that Democratic leadership appears to have made a really, really bad calculation on the politics of this bill.

“While we must combat the on-line theft of intellectual property, current proposals in Congress raise serious legal, policy and operational concerns. Rather than prematurely bringing the Protect IP Act to the Senate floor, we should first study and resolve the serious issues with this legislation. Considering this bill without first doing so could be counterproductive to achieving the shared goal of enacting appropriate and additional tools to combat the theft of intellectual property. I encourage the Senate Majority to reconsider its decision to proceed to this bill.”

Reading between the standard DC political lines... McConnell is making this partisan.